An Easter message

In March 2003, Sam Miller, a well-known Jewish businessman in Cleveland, delivered a speech defending the Catholic Church against what he viewed as unfair treatment in the media regarding the priest sexual abuse scandal. A few months later the speech was published in the newsletter for the Knights of Columbus in Ohio and, in the years since, has gone viral on the Internet. Below is a condensed version of Miller’s speech, which corrects some errors contained in the original while maintaining the essential message that has made it so popular.

During my entire life, I’ve never seen a more vindictive, more scurrilous, biased campaign against the Catholic Church. And the strangest thing is that it is in a country like the United States where there is supposed to be mutual respect and freedom for all religions.

There is a concentrated effort by the media to totally denigrate in every way the Catholic Church in this country. They have now blamed the disease of pedophilia on the Catholic Church, which is as irresponsible as blaming adultery on the institution of marriage.

Obviously, this is not just a Catholic problem. And solutions must be broader and deeper than those carried out by Catholic cardinals. The whole church has a responsibility to offer decisive leadership in the area of sexual misconduct, whether it is child abuse, sexual exploitation, or sexual harassment.

For Christians, the true scandal is not about priests. It’s about a manipulation of power to abuse the weak. When Jesus said, “Whoever receives the child, receives me,” he was rebuking his followers for putting stumbling blocks in front of the defenseless. Church is supposed to be a place where one can lay one’s defenses down; where one is welcomed, embraced, and blessed. This can only be authentically expressed in a culture that requires absolute respect for each individual’s freedom and selfhood. Until all churches bow humbly under the requirement, the indictments by wounded women and children will stand.

Why would newspapers carry on this vendetta on one of the most important institutions that we have today in the United States, namely the Catholic Church?

Why would these enemies of the church try to destroy an institution that has 230 colleges and universities in the United States with an enrollment of 700,000 students?

Why would anyone want to destroy an institution like the Catholic Church, which has a nonprofit hospital system of 637 hospitals which account for hospital treatment of one out of every five people, not just Catholics, in the United States today?

Why would anyone want to destroy an institution that clothes and feeds and houses the indigent – one of five indigents in the United States?

The Catholic Church today has 64 million members in the United States and is the largest nongovernmental agency in the country. It has 20,000 churches in this country alone. Every year they raise approximately $10 billion to help support these agencies.

So I say this to you: You don’t have to be ashamed of anything. Not only are you as good as the rest, but you’re better, in every respect. The Catholic Church helps millions of people every day of the week, every week of the month, and every month of the year. Priests have their problems, they have their failings just as you and I in this room do, but they do not deserve to be calumniated as they have been.